“Most local marketing programs fail, not because of lack of good ideas, but because of poor follow-through and support” - Jeff Slutsky

“Commitment is more important than creativity” - Dan Kennedy

A local- level marketing program is a local business outreach initiative where owners, managers, and employees who work at an individual location entice the local area consumers to be regular customers. The focus in is on the neighborhood or community. That geographic primary trading area where the majority of the business’s customers come from.

It could be a three to five mile radius but that could be bigger or smaller depending on the type of business and marketplace.

At this level, the mass media is cost prohibitive on an individual unit basis. Even when combining a number of units in a marketplace, the individual, local store marketing approach, when done properly, always shows the highest return for you marketing investment.

The Tactics Are Many

The tactics are many but not all of them work for every situation. Your goal is to collect a war chest of ideas that will allow you to take advantage of the hundreds of opportunities to infiltrate your local area with low-cost and even free advertising designed to generate initial trial and repeat sales.

But more important than the war chest of tactics, you need a system in place in your organization to ensure proper execution and follow up. The tactics are developed for and executed by the individual unit.

However, if your company has 100 franchisees, or 500 dealers, or 75 agencies, you also need to create a local marketing infrastructure to support that effort. Most local marketing programs fail, not because of a lack of ideas, but because of a lack of follow through and support.

So in addition to many of the specific promotions, it’s important to develop and execute an implementation infrastructure that allows you to consistently conduct local marketing programs over time.

You must follow to make sure each system is being executed properly by each franchisee, dealer or agency.

How is the Grassroots Marketing Solution Different?

The main emphasis is not on marketing. The marketing part is the easiest part of the program.

The focus is on training and development. When most local marketing programs get started, the unit manager or owner is handed a manual and told to go out to the community and bump up sales. Even with a full-day seminar, it’s not enough to get unit owners or managers to implement the programs.

Think of it like the military. You wouldn’t hand someone a gun and a helmet, point to the battlefield and tell them to engage the enemy. Soldiers are well-trained.

It’s unfair to expect an operations-focused person to develop marketing and sales skills on their own. They go through boot camp, specialty training, on-the-job training, certification, and so on. A similar approach is what is needed to make this type of program work.

Advertising is not the only answer to a need for customers or sales. Advertising may not even be the best answer. Advertising relied on out of context of marketing fails more often than not. And the least effective advertising, shunned by consumers, is advertising lacking personal relevance to those customers.

Much disappointment, frustration and failure can be traced to the fool’s mission of finding a single, simple solution to a complex problem or opportunity. ~ Dan Kennedy

As a small business owner, you may have noticed that there are some major problems with marketing, and they’re going to get worse.

In the near future, the traditional advertising media will become less cost effective for most average businesses. The non-traditional marketing approaches will become increasingly difficult to adapt and manage. You’ll be besieged by throngs of salespeople touting stats that prove their station, publication, or cyber stuff will bring you business.

Making your marketing and advertising money work smarter

To make your marketing and advertising money work smarter, you’ll need to re-evaluate ALL of your marketing. Though it’s impossible to start with a clean slate, you can start with a fresh focus called “zero- based marketing.”

Look for alternatives and supplements in places you never thought of before. You’ll need to examine different and unique approaches to marketing that all work synergistically together while seamlessly functioning within your operation.

Now that you see most of the problems, you can start working on your “No- B.S. Marketer” strategies, plans, tactics, and solutions.

Zero-Based based Marketing marketing might also be called “clean-slate” or “start anew marketing.”

This means setting aside all pre-conceived notions, all personal likes and preferences, all existent methods, all habits, every “but this is the way we’ve always done…”‘s, and taking an entirely fresh look at what works best and can deliver the best customers at the best cost, in your particular situation.

This is not always easy to do.

This may very well mean going back to the future, to focus on very un-sexy grassroots opportunities and methods, and giving them greater priority than the newest, most talked about, most hyped media.

Some suggestions:

• Direct Mail - while some think of this as either out-dated or the opposite, a brand new discovery, it’s been here all along as a great source of attracting new customers and keeping them coming back.
• Customer Appreciation Events - Many businesses and practices hold a “thank you party” for customers. This is up close, personal and profitable.

It may very well mean going back to basics of direct customer contact, effective salesmanship, and quality relationships. It means approaching the entirety of your marketing with no biases for your present methods, no biases against any method. Everything on the table.

Bottom Line - You can get Free Instant Access to all 10 of the No BS Grassroots Marketing Inconvenient Truths when you visit http://GrassrootsMarketingBonus.com

And if you like the tips in these Inconvenient Truths, your are going to love Dan Kennedy and his co-author Dan Slutsky’s new book “No B.S. Grassroots Marketing: Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoners Guide To Growing Sales and Profits of Small Businesses.”

Get your copy here

From Dan Kennedy, the provocative, truth-telling author of seven popular No B.S. books, thirteen business books total; a serial, successful, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; trusted marketing advisor, consultant and coach to hundreds of private entrepreneurial clients running businesses from $1-million to $1-billion in size; and he influences well over 1-million independent business owners annually through his newsletters, tele-coaching programs, local Chapters and Kennedy Study Groups meeting in over 100 cities, and a network of top niched consultants in nearly 150 different business and industry categories and professions.

Marketing at the local small business level has many challenges. One of the biggest can doing what you do for the right reasons. For example: There are lots and lots and lots of things you can do with advertising, marketing and promotion. Most small business owners, to their painful loss, fail to ask the “Jurassic Park” question:

Just because we can, does that mean we should?

Applied to you, the small business owner, the question becomes “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Do what you do for the right reason Be wary of investing in things because of ANY of the following reasons:

• They are popular,
• Are normal and customary,
• Are what “everybody” does,
• “Cool kids” do it,
• Giants do it,
• It’s the latest “must-have-gonna-make-everything-easier-magic-button-whiz-bang-flavor-of-the-week.”

Be resistant to pressure by media salespeople, marketing “gurus” biased to or selling particular tools, and employees, peers, friends and family.

I know this will comes as a huge surprise and a harsh reality. perhaps even a genuine shock: Not everyone has your best interests in mind. Not everyone with options has qualified options.

It is YOUR responsibility to hold each investment and activity up to harsh assessment and measurement, to minimize risks, avoid waste, and obtain positive returns.

Why are we doing this?

The story is told of the newlywed couple who were cooking their first Thanksgiving ham. The new wife cut off an end of the ham before putting it in the brand new oven. When asked why she cut of the end, she said: It’s the way my mom always did it.”

The unconvinced and frugal husband then called his mother-in-law to inquire about this practice. Her response: “I have no idea, but I’ll call my mom and find out. That’s the way she always did it.

From 2 generations back, his wife’s grandmother said: “Oh dearie, that’s the way we had to do it. We only had one pan and most hams would just not fit.”

As a small business owner with a limited marketing budget you can’t afford to guess at what works and what doesn’t. Only choose those marketing approaches that have the ability to prove their ROI value to you.

If it’s not provable, it’s not valuable

To stay within the bounds of the real world, I will admit there may be marketing that is not provable that works great. The problem is you’ll never know it. For local businesses, you have to be picky about where you put your limited resources for marketing.

I like to listen to old radio programs on CD’s, on the rare occasions I have to drive any significant distance. Many of these CD’s have the original commercials intact. In a series of Phillip Marlowe detective dramas – based on the character created by the legendary writer Raymond Chandler – there are commercials for the 1950 Ford sedans, and they are really spectacular radio commercials. They feature true Unique Selling Propositions:

• Ford had the only budget priced sedan with a powerful V-8 vs.versus all others in their class with 6 cylinder engines
• They had “king-size brakes” typically found only in much more expensive cars, providing maximum safety; and so on.
• Some of the commercials featured testimonials, like an airline pilot comparing the experience of driving this car to that of flying a plane, soaring above the crowds.
• They all had a strong call to action, pushing listeners to immediately arrange a test drive. And they all directed listeners where to find their local dealer in their phone directories, plus this line:

“… or perhaps you know him personally. He’ll be happy to arrange…”

The idea that you might know your local Ford dealer personally, whether you do or not, is a powerful piece of persuasion. It suggests that your Ford dealer is a man of your community, a neighbor, a person who is accessible to you, out and about, there to be held accountable. And even if you don’t actually know him personally, it reminds you that it feels like you do, because he appears in his own advertisements with his family and pets, and you know things about him as a result of his advertising, marketing, and public relations, maybe, that he was a war hero or a star on the area’s college sports team or spearheads a big fundraising effort each year for the volunteer fire department.

3 Tips for REAL personal, person-to-person relationships

First, I am a champion of the idea that there is neither good nor bad media per se, just as neither hammer nor scalpel nor gun is a good or bad tool. It depends on the purpose it is to serve and the capability of the person using it. The merits of any and every advertising and marketing tool, media, strategy, or tactic are totally situational.

Second, the merits of one almost always depend on the context of use and synergy with others. A billboard-wrapped truck in and of itself may have very limited value, as Jeff mentioned, largely due to the painfully brief message that can be grasped at 55 miles per hour (and realistically, who drives 55 mph anymore?). But if that billboard-wrapped truck is strategically parked in a neighborhood where work is being done on a happy customer’s home, from 5:00 to 6:30 PM, when all the neighbors are returning home from work AND the people working on the house are in good uniforms and, if approached, are able and eager to answer questions and collect information or immediately whip out a cell phone and connect the prospect with a salesperson back at the office AND the surrounding homes get a multi-step mailing campaign immediately after the work on Herb and Betty’s house is done, beginning with a testimonial letter from Herb and Betty to their neighbors, well, the billboard wrapped truck may be very valuable indeed.

Third, and most important – MOST important-when advertising and marketing media are used in a way that makes the connection human, from a person to another person, and reminds that “he is my local Ford dealer I probably know personally” – used in a “grassroots” way – it is all infinitely more effective.

“Most local marketing programs fail, not because of a lack of good ideas, but because of poor follow-through and support.” ~ Jeff Slutsky

Grassroots marketing for local businesses requires an actual plan of attack for developing and implementing a fully integrated, local-level marketing program that is designed to work within your organization. Most local-level marketers rely on the strategy of making it up as they go along.

And their low profits match this strategy.

There are 4 profit-sucking mistakes that most marketers make with grassroots marketing. As I have said many times, you don’t want to approach this, or anything else, like most people, because most people are broke.

So let’s take a closer look at these 4 mistakes and what to do instead.

4 Common Grassroots Marketing Mistakes

Mistake #1 – Not allowing enough time to fully develop the program - The all important developmental phase allows you to provide the rest of your stores a program that is much easier to implement and is more likely to succeed sooner. When you cut the development phase too early you short-circuit that effort.

What to do instead: When you take the time to do the heavy lifting on the front end it will benefit you forever.

Mistake #2 – Expecting franchises to implement without training and support - Sounds silly, but many local marketers do this. Again, don’t be most people. Many times a local marketing program begins and ends with a manual and/or a seminar.

What to do instead: While these are tools that help kick off such a program, it’s the follow up process that makes it successful.

Mistake #3 – Not enough support from above - All levels of management must support a successful local marketing program just as if you were introducing a new product, equipment, or procedure.

What to do instead: Even the highest levels of management can help by letting the rank and file know how much the program can mean to the company’s overall success.

Mistake #4 – Not allowing the one-to-one marketing element to happen - Some organizations are concerned that allowing franchisees or store franchisees to do some marketing will interfere with their operations. They therefore want to bring in an army of local marketing people to do it for them. This is too costly and ineffective.

What to do instead: The store franchisees are in a unique position to have their finger on the pulse of the community. This is the first step in dominating the local neighborhood.

Bottom Line - You can get Free Instant Access to all 10 of the No BS Grassroots Marketing Inconvenient Truths when you visit http://GrassrootsMarketingBonus.com

 

As a small business owner, you know much of what you are up against. But do you know exactly what you are up against? And even more importantly, do you know exactly what’s working now? The answers and strategies are inside this article.The Fight of Your LifeThe local small business owner is in the fight of his or her life. Many categories are shrinking by the day:

• clothing stores
• bookstores
• gift shops
• hardware stores
• restaurants
• even professional practices
• and more..

Yet, at the same time, in every category, in big cities and small towns, some independent, local small businesses have:

• thrived and grown
• grown stronger
• have managed to protect their profitability
• and have even driven bigger competitors out of their neighborhoods.

The strong prosper, so this article is not merely about getting customers, it is about strength.

Small business owner = special being

The local small business is a special being.

It can easily be eaten by all the wolves at its door if not for a special bond with a sufficient number of customers, clients, or patients who remain immune to seduction by all competitors, who consider themselves to be in a monogamous relationship with their dry cleaner or main street store or restaurant, requiring them to be faithful.

Opportunity and hazard

This presents you with both opportunity for advantage-in creating an asset no big company, big box retailer, or distant discounter can match- and huge hazard, because in many respects this can be the only sustainable advantage available to you, and if you fail at it, you fail entirely.

I happen to be a “customers for life” guy. In my own businesses, working indirectly with about a million and directly with about 25,000 small business owners annually, I call those who discover me and then never leave my “Lifers”, and I have many with 7, 10, 15, 20, even 30 years’ longevity. In my private marketing consulting copywriting practice, over 85% of all clients repeat, return periodically, and remain in on-going relationships

The winning strategy

While most business owners get a customer in order to make a sale, the winning strategy for the small business owner is to make a sale to get and keep a customer. Perhaps for life. The asset at stake here is relationship, and that is a very personal, person to person thing.

Bottom Line - You can get Free Instant Access to all 10 of the No BS Grassroots Marketing Inconvenient Truths when you visit http://GrassrootsMarketingBonus.com

And if you like the tips in these Inconvenient Truths, your are going to love Dan Kennedy and his co-author Dan Slutsky’s new book “No B.S. Grassroots Marketing: Ultimate No Holds Barred Take No Prisoners Guide To Growing Sales and Profits of Small Businesses.

Get your copy here

From Dan Kennedy, the provocative, truth-telling author of seven popular No B.S. books, thirteen business books total; a serial, successful, multi-millionaire entrepreneur; trusted marketing advisor, consultant and coach to hundreds of private entrepreneurial clients running businesses from $1-million to $1-billion in size; and he influences well over 1-million independent business owners annually through his newsletters, tele-coaching programs, local Chapters and Kennedy Study Groups meeting in over 100 cities, and a network of top niched consultants in nearly 150 different business and industry categories and professions.

Content Marketing is King. This is not new news. Despite all the drama around Google algorithm changes, Article Marketing is Dead, etc., it has always been and will always be King.

In a recent issue of Entrepreneur Magazine we find this quote:

“When it comes to marketing strategies, content marketing has just been crowned king, far surpassing search engine marketing, public relations and even print, television and radio advertising as the preferred marketing tool…”

If you are an online marketer, to not immediately learn how to leverage this is just foolish. At the same time, to get your fair share (or more) of the benefits and profits from your content there are 3 profit sucking mistakes you must avoid.

These are the mistakes that most people make. I’m offering you these mistakes, and more importantly, what to do instead, because I don’t want you to be like most people.

Why? Because most people are broke, that’s why.

So here are the 3 most common profit killing mistakes, along with what to do instead:

Mistake #1 – Failure to Craft a Compelling Title – Listen, your title is what pulls readers and prospects in to read your content. Think of your content title as you would a headline in a newspaper. It’s got the same job: pull in the reader.

So when you start with a boring title it causes you to communicate that the content is going to be dry and boring, and you chase away your prospects. And I’m betting that is not the result you want, right?

What to do instead: Create a compelling, I-must-stop-and-read-this-now title. It’s not all that hard to do. For example, here’s a boring title I found at random (and it was not at all difficult to find:

“Benefits of Real Acai Berry Supplements”

The content could be great, even live changing, but you would not know it from the title, would you? This title makes the subject, and the the article itself, seem boring before your prospect even sees it. Just a few tweaks makes it much more compelling:

“Vibrant Health Secrets – 3 Immediate Benefits of Real Acai Berry Supplements (This Is For You)”

That’s a “gotta-read” title instead of a “gotta-zzzzz” title.

With me so far? Then let’s read on.

Mistake #2 – Failure to Craft a Body That Flows - How’s that again? Take a look at most articles. It’s all glopped (actual word) together into one or two big hunks of text. This gives the psychological impression that this article will take a long time to read and will almost certainly be boring.

What to do instead: You can take the exact same content and craft it so that it causes the reader’s eye to flow right through your content. Use numbers and bullets. Include sub-headings like in this article. Paragraphs of no more than 3 sentences. Perhaps a quote or two in italics.

Mistake #3 – Failure to Create a Compelling “I-Must-Have-That-NOW!” Call to Action - Your Call to Action is when you invite your prospect to take their next success with you. Most people have a Call to Action that goes something like this:

“Sign up here for my newsletter” - Which results in most if not all prospects thinking “Wow, I can’t wait! That’s just what I got up this morning thing about – how I need another email in my inbox and another boring newsletter to read! Where do I sign?”

(I am not making this up).

What to do instead: Create a compelling Call to Action that gets prospects to take action right away. For example:

So now you can claim your Free Instant Access to one of my most powerful Content Creation Templates when you visit http://JeffHerring.com/3mistakescontentcreationtemplate

And you can discover even more about Content Creation and Marketing on our webinar: Content Creation Made Easy & Profitable – Blog Posts, Articles Social Media Updates [and more!] when you visit http://ContentCreationMadeEasy.com to watch the Replay, and choose your time as it replays every day at 4 pm EST – register anyway if that is not a good time so we can send you the Replay link.

From Jeff Herring – passionately spreading the gospel of Content Marketing.